Personas in action!

In our last post we mentioned an intensive workshop with our railroad construction partner Meltor. It was a meeting full of conversations about the realities of daily work, employer challenges and employee perspectives.

Today we would like to tell you about one tool that particularly helped us in this process and allowed us to look at the industry through the lens of.... people! We are talking about Personas.

What is Persona and why did we decide to use it in a workshop with an employer?

What is a Persona? It's not a real person, but a representative, detailed profile of a fictional user - in our case, a potential candidate for a job in railroad construction. With Persona, we can think of a “future employee” or “potential candidate” in a more concrete and empathetic way, instead of as an abstract group.

During the workshop, we created Candidate Persons in order to better understand the reality and employer expectations of new employees, and to capture key aspects that young people looking for a job in this industry should pay special attention to.

Why do we need this approach in a project creating VR materials? For our simulations to be truly useful and effective, they need to be a bridge between the expectations of the labor market and the knowledge of future employees. Understanding what an employer needs from a new person and what a young person should be prepared for allows us to design VR content that realistically shows the realities of the profession and helps young people make informed decisions and prepare to enter the railroad construction job market.

Personas in Action: Workshop Profiles of the Typical Candidate and the Ideal Candidate

During the workshop with our Partner, we jointly “brought to life” two key Personae that represent different but important reference points in the context of the labor market:

• The Typical Candidate Persona: The creation of this profile allowed us to discuss the reality of recruitment and implementation from the employer's perspective, as well as the typical challenges and competency gaps of candidates applying for jobs. We analyzed what his or her typical background, experience, expectations (which often differ from reality) and gaps in knowledge or skills are. Understanding the Typical Candidate helped us identify areas where our materials can fill in the gaps and correct misconceptions about working in railroad construction.

  

  Persona of a Typical Job Candidate developed during an expert workshop.

• Persona of the Ideal Candidate: This profile represents the employer's aspirations and key qualities sought in new employees. Who would the company like to recruit? What qualities, skills and experience should the “dream” employee have? What are his/her motivations, what does he/she look for in a job to stay in the industry for the long term? Working on the Person of the Ideal Candidate allowed us to define the key competencies (not just technical ones!) that should be developed and promoted through our VR materials, as well as to capture aspects of the profession that may be particularly attractive to young people, such as opportunities for growth, cutting-edge technology or real impact on infrastructure.

  
  

  

  Persona of the Ideal Job Candidate developed during the expert workshop.

Working on these two profiles allowed us to clearly see the gap between the current state of candidate knowledge/preparation and employer expectations. Most importantly, through this work, we were able to precisely identify the key aspects and challenges that we need to address in our VR materials so that, on the one hand, they meet the employer's needs and, on the other hand, provide valuable guidance for young people planning a career in this industry.

Workshop recipe: attractive tools - Miro and Person cards

The process of creating Personas was not only substantive, but also very engaging and dynamic, thanks in large part to the well-prepared workshop materials. We worked on a large virtual whiteboard in Miro, which served as a digital backdrop for our discussion and visualization of Person.

Key, however, were the tangible tools that participants had in their hands:

• Printed Personas cards with spaces to fill in information (name, age, motivations, challenges, etc.);

• Sets of colorful cards with photos;

• Cards with various statements - short statements about work, expectations, concerns, career goals.

Workshop participants worked with these cards, grouping them, pinning them to Person profiles, discussing their relevance and fit. This tangible form of work made the discussion very dynamic, visual, and facilitated grasping the complexity of candidate profiles and confronting different perspectives. These attractive materials weren't just gadgets - they were tools that helped to systematize complex information and focus on the “human” dimension of the industry, essential for understanding employers' expectations and young people's needs.

From Personas to Virtual Reality

The lessons learned from working on Candidate Personas are a key guidepost for us in creating VR scenarios. Thanks to them, we know better how to realistically show the reality of the job from the employer's perspective (what they expect from new employees, what are the key procedures, what skills they value) and how to highlight those aspects of the profession that young job seekers should pay special attention to (e.g., development opportunities, specific challenges, work culture, actual requirements, career paths).

Creating Personas is a great example of how we combine industry expertise with modern methods of project work in our project. Understanding the “human” aspect - the expectations of employers and the needs of young people - is as important as understanding rail or VR technology. We are confident that this stage will allow us to create educational materials that are not only technologically advanced, but most importantly effective and tailored to the needs of the audience and the market.

We would like to thank our Partner Meltor for their openness and commitment to this exercise!

The project is co-financed by the European Union.